Barrett

This is an appeal by the City of Sacramento from a judgment against it for $4,000 in favor of plaintiff Mary Barrett, awarded by a jury as damages for personal injuries sustained by her in a fall upon a sidewalk within its boundaries.

The question is based upon the Act of 1923, subdivision 2 (Stats. 1923, p. 675), which provides:

The evidence before the jury showed the defect complained of was a broken area in a cement sidewalk near the center thereof, irregular in outline, approximately twelve inches across and about three-eighths of an inch deep, and that the sidewalk had existed in that condition for over five years, during which time city employees had, on various occasions, been working in that vicinity.

Appellant attacks the judgment from various angles, but the greater emphasis is laid upon the contention that the break was “a mere trifling irregularity in the surface of the sidewalk” and not therefore such a dangerous or defective condition as comes within the purview of the statute and that damages from an irregularity so slight could not reasonably be anticipated by the city, and hence its existence showed neither an unsafe condition within the meaning of the statute,…